A Broward County, Florida jury reached a verdict Thursday to determine whether Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz should be executed for the 2018 school massacre.
The jury’s recommendation is expected to be read Thursday morning.
Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to the murders of 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018 – a date that he said he picked so the school would never celebrate Valentine’s Day again.
Cruz fired volleys from an AR-15-style semi-automatic down hallways and into classrooms for about seven minutes, returning to those who lay wounded to kill them.
PARKLAND SCHOOL SHOOTER NIKOLAS CRUZ ADDRESSES COURT AFTER GUILTY PLEA: ‘I LOVE YOU’
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz speaks with sentence mitigation specialist Kate O’Shea, a member of the defense team, during jury instructions in the penalty phase of Cruz’s trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022.
(AP)
Cruz said he purchased the rifle almost exactly a year before the shooting and began to seriously plan it about seven months in advance.
At one point in the deliberations, jurors came back to the courtroom to have the testimony of two doctors read back to them about the mental state of Cruz.
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He researched previous mass shooters, saying he tried to learn from their experience.
From left; Abby Hoyer, Tom and Gena Hoyer, and Michael Schulman react during the reading of jury instructions in the penalty phase of the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. The Hoyer’s son, Luke, and Schulman’s son, Scott Beigel, were killed in the 2018 shootings. Abby Hoyer is Luke Hoyer’s sister. Cruz previously plead guilty to all 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the 2018 shootings.
(Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool)
During the three-month penalty trial that determined his sentence, prosecutors played security videos of the shooting and showed gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos.
Teachers and students testified about seeing other students and staff killed, while parents and spouses gave emotional statements.
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Judge Elizabeth Scherer announces that the murder weapon will go back to the jury room to be available during jury deliberations in the penalty phase of the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022.
(Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool)
Cruz’s lead attorney Melisa McNeill and her team argued that his birth mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy left him with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
His adoptive mother could not cope with his severe mental and emotional deficits, which were never properly treated, McNeill told jurors.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
